By ROBERT MCCLURE, P-I REPORTER

Updated 10:00 pm, Thursday, June 19, 2008

Gas prices are headed into the stratosphere. Worldwide demand for energy is skyrocketing, too. And meanwhile, something has to be done to rein in the planet-warming gases on which our economy is based.

A looming disaster, huh?

Maybe. But that's not the way organizers of a Saturday conference in Seattle see it. This alliance of environmentalists and labor organizers says Washington is actually poised to benefit from what it is calling the "new green economy."

"This is hard-wired into Puget Sound's genetic code. We understand technological revolutions. We started one in aerospace in the '50s, and we started one in software in the '70s, and now we can start one in this," said Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Wash., who will address the conference.

The pairing of green activists and labor -- dubbed the "Blue-Green Alliance," for its environmental and blue-collar participants -- is an outgrowth of the common cause made by the groups at the 1999 World Trade Organization protests in Seattle. That coalition was capsulized under the heading "Teamsters and turtles."

At Saturday's "Washington State Good Greens Job Conference," these groups are expected to be joined by venture capitalists, religious leaders, utility executives, social-justice advocates and others.

"It's a good evolution of our relationship," said Kathleen Ridihalgh, senior regional representative for the Sierra Club, another conference speaker. "We worked on trade issues for several years after the WTO. ... As we all got to know each other and these energy issues became more relevant, this became part of the discussion."

Against a backdrop that for decades seemed to pit environmentalists and labor groups against each other, greens, labor and their allies worked together in the last few years to help pass state laws to improve energy-efficiency and require use of renewable energy. Now they're looking to make sure the jobs those requirements spawn end up in the Evergreen State.

"We've found some places we can have common ground, and one of those is the green economy," said Jim Woodward, the United Steelworkers subdistrict director for Washington and four other Western states. "We look at this as a win-win situation. In Washington state there are about 25,000 jobs that could be created moving toward this new green economy and away from our dependence on foreign oil."

For example, Woodward said, while lots of wind turbines are being installed in Eastern Washington, they're all being produced overseas.

He asks: Why not build those here, helping replace the 3 million manufacturing jobs the country has lost in the last decade?

"We just want to make sure those are good jobs, family-wage jobs that ... will help the economy and build up our job base at home," Woodward said.

To put the 25,000 jobs in context, though, bear in mind that Washington, according to labor activists, has lost about 80,000 manufacturing jobs. In the last year, 56,000 people joined Washington's labor force, while only 23,000 jobs were created.

And not everyone thinks this "new green economy" is necessarily a slam-dunk good idea.

Todd Myers of the Washington Policy Center, a Seattle free-market think tank, said it's possible to do some economic harm by focusing too much societal capital on creating green jobs here.

Here's why: For now, at least, renewable-energy technologies are mostly not cost-competitive with older, planet-warming methods of producing power. So overall costs are higher than staying with the old technologies, he said.

Think of it this way: Say your objective was to create agricultural jobs. Say it would take five workers to replace every tractor taken out of commission, Myers said. That's a net increase of four jobs -- but overall, using the tractor is a lot more efficient.

Plus, Myers said, other nations -- notably Denmark for wind energy and Germany for solar power -- are far ahead of the U.S.

Under the approach the Blue-Green Alliance seems to be pursuing, he said, "We're going to end up spending tax money and increasing costs to consumers just so we can say we have an (renewable energy) industry here," Myers said.

"I don't think we should turn Bill Gates into a windmill manufacturer unless that's what he's best at. Bill Gates should sell software and buy lots of windmills, rather than making them in his back yard."

Environmental activists, though, point out that the Europeans got so far ahead because of government intervention in the form of subsidies, among other tools, that promoted alternative energy technologies.

The United States needs to get in the game now, they argue.

Among the companies sending representatives to the Saturday conference are Puget Sound Energy, which has launched wind and solar projects, as well as McKinstry Co., the region's largest energy-efficiency contractor.

In addition to Inslee, the speaker list includes Gov. Chris Gregoire and King County Executive Ron Sims.